Chelsea have confirmed that midfielder, N'Golo Kante has left the club's pre-season camp and returned to London after suffering a knee injury at the end of last season.

Kante picked up the injury against Watford at the start of May and has yet to fully recover from the problem.

He was a major doubt for the Europa League final against Arsenal but managed to play and helped to Blues claimed the title in Baku, before then missing France's international games in June.

The former Leicester City midfielder has yet to feature for the team in pre-season and he trained away from his teammates during the recent trip to Ireland.

Kante was part of Frank Lampard's 25-man squad for the pre-season tour of Japan but he wasn't included in the squad that lost 1-0 to Kawasaki Frontale on Friday.

The player had in fact trained with his teammates the day before during a couple of exercises, although he then worked alongside one of the team's coaching staff on his own for the remainder of the sessionThe 28-year-old was absent once again at the club's training session in Saitama on Sunday morning and the club have since issued an update on the player.

A message on Chelsea's official Twitter page read, "N'Golo Kante has travelled back to the UK to continue his rehabilitation for an injury connected to the knee problem he sustained at the end of last season."

The Blues will monitor the player's fitness over the coming days and will hope he recovers before their opening league game against Manchester United in three weeks time.